The Overcrowding Of Prisons

This article explains how prisons have changed over the past few years. It also explains what the government has done to change this. There has been a “mass incarceration” as the author states. This means that there has been a massive increase in the amount of people in prison. Since there has been a spike in these numbers, it has caused an overcrowding of prisons. This causes taxes to raise in order for more facilities to be built. Many liberals are concerned that the minorities are being targeted unfairly. While conservatives are more worried about the increased costs. Both sides are actively looking for a solution to the problem of increased incarcerations. Some alternatives to long sentencing include drug treatment programs, ending mandatory …show more content…
They explain how the Brock Turner case was not necessarily following the mandatory minimum. Since he was a collegiate athlete, many believe that the judge was influenced. This shows that even though there is laws that regulate a minimum sentence, they are not always followed. After this case, the government put a more strict regulation on mandatory minimum laws dealing with rape. These revisions are set in place to make sure this problem will not happen again. The author explains that it could still happen again due to the fact that a judge found a way around it the first time. This makes them think that another judge will find another way around the new law. This is another reason that the mandatory minimum laws should be lifted, according to the author.
Since there are mandatory minimum laws on small offences, the incarceration rates have increased tremendously. There are many more laws on crack than there are on cocaine. Many believe that this is a way to target the poor drug communities. One law on crack stated that a person caught with anywhere between 5g and 500g of crack would have a minimum of five years. This is a very large difference in the amount of drugs. This law was changed by President Obama to 28g for five years instead of 5g. This decreased the amount of people incarcerated by a large …show more content…
The author displays a bias towards prison reforms such as decreasing mandatory minimum laws. This shows that the author is more in favor of the liberal side on this argument. The author could do a better job of proving the other sides arguments wrong. Since the author doesn’t mention many of the other arguments for mandatory minimum laws, it makes the paper weaker. If they would have made these points and proved them wrong, it would have supported their stance more. The author gives very points for why mandatory minimum laws should be decreased or even